Alzheimer’s produces a new identity rather than merely diminishing a person.
Evidence
I say “operated” because it seemed to me that my grandmother, or, at least, the new and ultimate version of her, was the work of the disease, its opus, its own sculpture. Indeed, this was not a diminished person in front of me, the same woman weaker than she used to be, lessened, spoiled. No, this was a stranger who didn’t recognize me, who didn’t recognize herself because she had undoubtedly never met her before. — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded, 53
Categorization
- DEFINE: Establishes the culminating metaphor that ‘destructive plasticity’ names: the disease as artisan, sculpture, opus—the production of a genuinely new self.
- XREF: Connects to the reader’s experience with Alzheimer’s as identity-loss versus identity-transformation, and to Malabou’s later debates with psychoanalysis about trauma’s productive power. — connects to: Dementia is another way humans lose control of their carefully maintained identities — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror…, 138; Alzheimer’s patients return to a generic, unowned childhood rather than their own — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded: From Neurosis to Brain…, 1377; The loss of individual personality can itself become an identity (+4 more)
Broader Connections
- The loss of individual personality can itself become an identity
#corroborates(0.88) - The new identification produces a self that did not preexist it.
#corroborates(0.82) - Alzheimer’s patients return to a generic, unowned childhood rather than their own
#expands(0.80) — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded, 1377 - Dementia is another way humans lose control of their carefully maintained identities
#corroborates(0.78) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 138 - Neurological trauma can create an identity without origin or memory
#expands(0.75) — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded, 3217 - Neurology observes identity change from lesions without theorizing it
#expands(0.72) — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded, 3440